Filament winding and twisting apparatus



March l, 1955 R- GUYQ-r FILAMENT WINDING AND TwIsTING APPARATUS Filed July 25, 1951 United States Patent O FILAMENT wiNnlNG AND TwIsTING APPARATUS Raymond Guyot, Vaulx-en-Velin, France, assignor to Textile and Chemical Research Company Limited, St. Peter, Port of Guernsey, Channel Islands, a corporation of Great Britain This invention relates to an improved guide roller for the winding of rayon filaments and has for an object to provide such a roller having new and improved characteristics. This invention is an improvement on that described in French Patent No. 860,530 which shows a roller serving as a reciprocating guide in the winding of rayon.

In the winding of freshly spun rayon on spinning bobbins the filaments remain parallel and form a more or less spreadout roving, the individual elements of which tend to move in the course of the various treatments of the rayon, for example during washing and desulphurization in the case of viscose rayon, resulting in difiiculties in the subsequent unwinding, and notably in the breakage of filaments.

To avoid this disadvantage it has been proposed to provide a roller serving as a reciprocating guide in the winding of rayon during spinning and at the same time imparting to the rayon a twist of periodically varying direction, whilst ensuring a proper cohesion of the filaments of the yarn so that it is possible to obtain more porous wound packages or skeins which can be more readily treated by liquids. The bundles of filaments are rolled together first in one direction and then in the other, the elements of which scarcely move during the said treatments.

Such a roller is especially advantageous in winding on to strippable bobbins, in which the mass of wound yarn is stripped from the bobbin after the doing in order to be treated without the support of the bobbin. Without the special roller, it is found extremely difiicult to treat the wound package or skein so that a washed and dried mass which is still capable of being unwound under industrially acceptable conditions, but with the special roller, on the other hand, satisfactory unwinding results are obtained even in winding on to strippable bobbins.

Experiments designed to provide a roller particularly suited to the requirements and more especially one by means of which it is possible to obtain a rayon which comprises twisted sections separated only by very short lengths of untwisted yarn from sections having an opposite twist, have led to the discovery of a type of special roller which has the advantage of rendering possible the production of relatively high alternating twists, for example of i200 turns per meter.

The roller according to the invention is distinguishable by the fact that it comprises a body' of relatively hard material such as that known under the registered trade-mark Bakelite, associated with two relatively soft flanges, for example of soft rubber. Particularly interesting results are obtained if the slot between the two anges is orientated along a plane intersecting the axis of the roller at an angle less than 90. Under these conditions, the untwisted portions of the yarn wound during the guiding by the roller are smaller.

Two exemplary embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying diagrammatic drawings, in which:

Fig. 1 is a section of a roller having a hard body, with soft flanges;

Fig. 2 is a similar section of a roller having soft fianges formed with an inclined slot therebetween; and

Fig. 3 is a plane view with section of the bobbin.

The roller of Fig. 1 comprises a hub 1 having an axial channel 2 for the reception of a pin providing the rotational support. The said hub or body is of Bakelite or Ebonite, for example, and has welded or vulcanized to it two flanges 3 and 4 of fiexible rubber, between which the yarnis guided. The yarn moves constantly in the slot in the direction of the double arrow and rotates on itself. Thus, it acquires an alternately positive and negative false twist.

The hub 5 shown in Fig. 2 is identical with the hub 1 of Fig. 1, but the two soft flanges 6 and 7 are of special form in that they have between them a slot inclined in relation to the axis. The roller acts in the manner of a small cam which produces a very considerable reduction in the length of the untwisted portions. It is obvious that these examples do not in any way limit the invention,

In this figure the yarn 8 is guided to the bobbin B by the guide owing the invention which is duly reciprocated as shown by the two arrows. The bobbin B is suitably rotated. This bobbin B consists of two flanges 9, 10 and an associated yarn bearing elastic sleeve 11, which is slit and perforated. Flange 9 s provided with a frusto conical seat 12 and ange 10 with an opposite frusto conical seat 13 against which the sleeve 11 is seated.

The yarn is wound on the thus assembled bobbin B, and when enough yarn has been wound the bobbin B is disassembled by extracting the two flanges from the sleeve 11. Then this sleeve contracts and may be separated from the winding whlch is wrapped in cloth or provided with a cake cover to be submitted to the usual treatment without being supported by the winding-bobbin.

What is claimed is:

l. A filament bundle winding and twisting apparatus comprising a rotating bobbin and a guide roller positioned to guide a filament bundle onto said bobbin and adapted to be reciprocated for winding said bundle into a package, said guide roller having a hub of hard material and lianges of resilient material disposed on and concentric with said hub, said lianges being closely spaced to receive and guide said filament bundle therebetween to said bobbin and being sufficiently soft to grip the filament bundle as the bundle engages first one and then the References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 272,812 Wharton Feb. 20, 1883 1,066,466 Chartier July 8, 1913 1,216,147 Lipps Feb. 13, 1917 2,124,422 Klein et a1. July 19, 1938 2,253,521 Hitchcock Aug. 26, 1941 

